R.I.P.: James Baker Hall, rural poet-photographer

"While the nation has been swept up with the recent passings of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, many of us regionalists and cultural workers lost a great friend and artist this past week. He was a friend and inspiration to all he touched." So writes Jack Wright of Ohio University about James Baker Hall, and poet and photographer who retired in 2003 after for 30 years director of the creative writing program at the University of Kentucky.

On UK's Appalnet list-serve, Wright refers readers to a tribute by Bellarmine University English Department Chairman Frederick Smock in The Courier-Journal of Louisville. "Jim's poetry (he published seven volumes) is admired for its humor, crisp imagery and deep feeling. He delighted in life's little moments, and he caught them absolutely in his lilting lines," Smock writes. "His poetic method was photographic, which comes as no surprise, for he was also a talented photographer, publishing three books of photographs and showing his work, recently, at 21C and Actors Theatre in Louisville, and at the UK Art Museum." His last major photo book was Tobacco Harvest: An Elegy, published by the University Press of Kentucky in 2004.